Martin Barrett

Well it all happened as planed. Got up at 0440 and left 0505 across to the M1 and then M6, M54. So far so good not raining and heading under the cloud front towards the clear sky beyond. Stop for fuel at Telford and don oversuit as clouds are looking darker. Does the trick rain holds off arrrive at the Ponderosa for 0800 a little earlier than planned. The roads are damp but hopefully drying and the rain has held off the moutain tops are in cloud though. As I come over the Horseshoe Pass grated by the sight of the Ponderosa, notice that there is no roof My panic about the potential lack of second breakfast is eased when they open up shop at 0845 Orsen arrives just before 9 with KB just after and just as we are setting down to breakfast, Gary. Breakfasts complete we prepare to set out. KB has given me the lecture on taking it easy on the first bit as the roads are still wet and there's the odd fallen leaf. And where off with KB taking the lead. I'm following. first bend his back end steps out, he continues unruffled. I'm thinking if this is taking it easy After 40 miles we stop and top up our tanks. Then continue skirting around snowdon to come back over the Llanberis Pass. Still no rain but there is still the odd wet road. Stop for photo oportunity at the far end of the pass. Off we go again this time Gary is taking the lead folowed by Orson, myself and tailend charlie KB. Despite the visual clue of following, Orson initialy seems to have forgoten which side of the road we ride on in the UK. He then seems to have another lapse in an overtake aroundan "S" bend causing much consternation to the elderly chap driving the car, for when I attempt to pass on the next straight, not fully marked up as two lanes but plenty wide enough, he sounds his horn and moves across. I give him the benefit of the doubt as there was a cone and a sign in the gutter and he might of wanted a bit more room. But he repeats it on the next straight again! I do go past though. Debating if to stop and have words. But decide this is not the best carreer option so just a slight dab of the brakes to make him think of the options that might unwind, but not so that he going to get close enough to shunt me up the rear. I notice in my mirror the KB is along side having words. Once we are all gathered together we head off for a "nice cup of tea" whilst the world sorts it self out, at one of the FFestiniog railway stations Whilst there chap approaches and comments that you never see four Guzzis together. Transpires he has a Cali. Continue to the Seaside where we have fish and chips for lunch. Whilst sat upon the sea wall eating a passing seagull scores a direct hit on me. Luckily misses my lunch. Off we set again, I end up in the lead after a set of roadworks. KB takes me on the outside on a series of bends and gives me the thumbs up at the same time - git - End up refuelling again, a further 127 miles. A slight delay after setting off as Orson got fuel vapour into his eyes. But the system of keeping an eye (no pun) on the one behind cuts in and after a few minutes we are all gathered up and off again. The plan being that Gary takes us to the right road and I then take the lead. I mistake his I'm lost indicator to pull in as There you go you lead. So off I set, he makes the mistake of following thinking that the road will come out roughly in the right place. Didn't do to badly once we reached the dead end only had to retrace a mile before could improvise across country to get to where we wanted to be. Continue onwards ending up in a Pub in Welshpool just after 6pm. a further 80 miles. Say our good byes after a drink and notice Orsons rear tyre is shagged (thats putting it nicely) Gary was going to accompany him a bit further on his way back to Whitchurch. Hope you got back OK. (edit- I see that he has) There you have it the Waltz was about 250 miles between 10am and 6pm from Ponderosa cafe, Llangollen to the Raven PH, Welshpool. I got back hope at 2200hrs having done a total of 605miles. A good day out

I was going to say that will seperate you from all the other Tenni riders there Then I was going to say greyish green - the Aerostitch or Tenni But I'll see you there

Theres no shortage of fuel other than that caused by the panic buyers apparently. I was out at lunch time and saw small queues at the ones I went past. One even had diesal only sign up. Looking at the Beeb there are stories of a weeks fuel being sold in two days. Hopefully all the muppets have topped up their tanks and it will calm down. This is classic everyone for themself - I hate people. I'm hoping that at 5am There won't be much of a queue and that the motorway service stations are well stocked on route. Perhaps I ought to leave at 4 just in case

Either. If you use attatchments you get the nice little picture to click on to enlarge if you wish. The down side is that you have only so much global space on your account (get more by becoming a Goldmember) and attatchments are heavy users. They also use up Jaap's server space and bandwidth. Becareful on the size of your picture will need to (or should) resize it prior to attatchment. I use links (img) to remotely hosted pictures, loads of free hosts out there. Saves on Jaap's server and bandwidth. Could be an issue for users on a slow dial up connection if there are a lot of pictures in a thread. (mine resizes automaticly (250kb) so not too much of an issue Topic on pictures and another One of the nice things about this forum is that we use a lot of pictures in our threads (some are even relevent) compared to Wildguzzi (even though lots cross post) for example. Oh and Welcome

I have a camping chair that I got with intention of taking with me on the goose. But it seemed to be one thing too much so left it behind. I did attract comments on how much stuff I took on the weekend trip. This is me in touring configuration. que the over used picture of the goose or inthis case one from another angle Jason, any pictures of yours loaded complete with chair?

On your pannier frames the rear top bracing strut seems to connect to each other, on mine it is lower mounted and fixes to the mudguard. Is this a modification you have conducted yourself?

Looking at the five day forecasts for Bala, Betws, llangollen is currently better on Wednesday and deterioating on Thursday. There is some improvement for Friday but not across the board. The lady on the BBC this morning had overnight rain tonight but cleared by 0900ish Looking at the big picture there is a front coming in it will dump rain its just a case of trying to be there after its passed and before the next one. I'm free all week so not tied to any one day. Just would like confirmation mid evening so can be set for my early start. I could ring you all at 0445 to check I would suggest stick with Wednesday (tomorrow) unless the weather forecast changes in next 10 hours to rain Wednesday off and with good weather on Thursday

I doubt that it really is her mother. I suppose there are only so many ways you can drape a woman over or near a bike. But when I looked through the site I spotted the simularity. It would be nice to think they had taken inspiration from the original. I still remember the old Coburn and Hughes "long legged and easy to live with" adverts in the MCN 25+ years ago

Re the Norton advertisment here's the insperation for the shot. Her mother in the same pose 30 years previous

Ok 0900 Wednesday at the Ponderosa is Great. If I go direct That means I'll only have the single* breakfast which can only be a good thing. * That is single breakfast ontop of my cereal at home before setting out, if I get there early as opposed one at the truck stop waiting for Orsen and another whilst waiting at the Ponderosa. The hobbit tour of Wales, first breakfast; second breakfast; elevenes; lunch; afternoon tea........

No preference on which day for me. Should I make first for the truck stop or straight to the Ponderosa? What time are we looking at all getting to the Ponderosa? Keith are you looking for leaving home after the Kids have all left for school? The route planner suggests a 3 1/2 hr trip for me so would be looking at any time from 0830 when they open. If you need it for those where are you situations my mobile 0797430318 but obviously it will be in my tank bag

I had checked the weather some 8 hours prior to your post going through, Whitchurch, llangollen, Bala and Betws-y-coed At that time Whitchurch was sunny intervals throughout, and Bala and Betws were light showers on Wednesday. I see now Bala has improved to Sunny intervals and Betws has deterioated. This is still a longrange forecast and is likely to change over the next few days. The trend seemed to be improving with the exception of Betws so who knows. Definately be in a better position to know tomorrow evening. When I was learning to fly there was an expresion "don't drink on the weather forecast" I did get caught out once by improving weather. So there's allways hope.

No Just Latin - Equis from Equine means horse piss, I see that there is a bit of red in the bottom of the glass, Blood? sugest you have your horse's kidneys checked out by a vet

Thank you Randy, Crystal clear. At least I won't be wiggling in trial and error and risk breaking them.

1-no 2 - I'd think they'd use their pass key

There are several on line hosting services - becareful what you enter if you do a search I use http://www.photobucket.com/ just sign in and upload, quite handy as it auto sizes your pics.

I did see an advert in one of the mags for underseat replacement for the GSXR100K5 or whatever its called, so its fixable, but there wasn't a price. Like everything else, can be done at a price. Germans and type approval excepted

Use a hosting service and do it as links using img , no limit for you and saves Jaap's bandwidth no disadvantages and if you've got pics allready hosted you can get at them when posting away from your normal pc

1- snap - though it was on my dodgy machine haven't tried it on the wifes singing and dancing one 2- nicest since CB400F - put them in to my avtar (for a while) the looks are growing on me. It's taken me this long to appriciate the centaro and then some colours are way better than others 3 - allready answered Got sound now. Turned the volume up Not sure if it was there all along or not

Do we have an answer, before I break mine off and therefore miss the Welsh Waltz or I will leave well alone and attend with a dirty air filter :!: bodger at work :!: It's been while and a few miles since its last dealer service, so I thought I should give her one So armed with lucky gaskets to ensure the originals are reuseable I've started.

FFS. Even in a 30 thats a bit keen. Have they not heard of PR. I forgot they don't police by consent they all have guns. Though we're headed that way to A pull for a chat and as an introduction to a spot of fishing is one thing, but to start ticketing for that solely No I don't mean that type of fishing. instead of a lecture on the dangers of excess speed a talk on the differences between coarse ( fly. ledge or float) and sea fishing. Though could be effective when the word gets out. "Don't speed there. I can cope with the fine but the boring git with his tall fishermans tales another matter alltogether"

I'm not doing spot the difference, not after all those horible things that was said about me after the last one. Well not unless there are quiz points on offer

It's a fast idle lever, I understand the same as raising your throttle stops. I don't use mine. I'm a start and ride (gently at first) guy. There are differing opions on what is best for the engine. I'm not sure on the advisablity of riding with an artifically high lower rev limit as will effect engine braking on slowing down etc requiring more brake and clutch work, might as well juggle the throttle when required - but warms up really quickly so of minor matter anyway

TLM have tie ins with outlets in various other countries - from the TLM web site Happy shopping

Looks like a Bagster (baglux) tank harness. I know that they did a green one for the early (short tank) V11 Try this link, cant post picture as at work as you can see they have real difficulty getting the models sorted out correctly so if intrested check all options to find your specific one